Ernesto Zedillo

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon (27 December 1951-) was President of Mexico from 1 December 1994 to 30 November 2000, succeeding Carlos Salinas de Gortari and preceding Vicente Fox. He was the last of the uninterrupted 70-year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Biography
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon was born in Mexico City, Mexico on 27 December 1951, and he graduated from the National Polytechnic Institute in 1972 as an economist. Zedillo began working in the Bank of Mexico as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, where he supported the adoption of macroeconomic policies for the country's improvement. In 1988, he became the leader of the PRI's secretariat, and he served as Secretary of Programming and Budget from 1988 to 1992 and Secretary of Education from 1992 to 1993. In 1994, Zedillo ran for President, winning with 48.69% of the popular vote.

Zedillo was faced with an economic crisis immediately after becoming President, but he solved the crisis with a number of reforms and actions, as well as with financial assistance from US president Bill Clinton, who loaned Mexico $20 billion. Zedillo was perhaps too honest of a president, as his electoral reform led to the PRI's influence being lowered; in 1997, for the first time in history, the PRI did not win a majority in Congress. He also privatized the state railway service, N de M, which suspended passenger service in 1997. Zedillo also faced unrest at home, with the Chiapas uprising breaking out in 1995 when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a mass movement of socialist peasants, rose in rebellion against the government due to its outsourcing of jobs to the USA as a result of its NAFTA trade policy. In 2000, the unpopular Zedillo recognized the victory of opposition candidate Vicente Fox in the presidential election, paving the way for an unlikely change of power. Zedillo worked as an economic consultant after leaving the presidency.